Page 2 - Caravan World Magazine Lake Ballard Beings

The
BALLArd
BEINGs
rEMoTE LAKE BALLArd NorTH of KALGoorLIE Is HoME To A sCULPTUrE PArK THAT’s oUT of THIs WorLd.
Could it be that in 2003 a party of 51 extraterrestrial beings landed on the remote salt bed of Lake Ballard and were turned to black pillars of salt as punishment for some biblical misdeed? Or, could it be that the Perth International Arts Festival commissioned British sculptor, Antony Gormley, to produce Inside Australia, an installation consisting of 51 carbonised steel statues rendered from the full-body laser scans of citizens of Menzies?
The statues conjure up all sorts of images. Perhaps they are the dark ghosts of the hundreds of miners who perished searching for gold in the region,
or Dreamtime ancestors wandering a landscape they could not bear to leave. Without doubt, the statues of Lake Ballard should not be missed by anyone visiting the WA Goldfields.
KALGoorLIE
Kalgoorlie continues to draw miners after 120 years, with the ground still yielding gold from one of the largest gold mines
in the world. Wander along Hannan Street from the visitor centre to the WA Museum and see the numerous historic buildings. The museum exhibits the life of prospectors and includes a reproduction of the Golden Eagle, a nugget weighing
in at a staggering 1136 ounces found by
a 16-year-old boy in 1931. There is also a Cobb & Co carriage and a bicycle made from wood, and you can learn about the construction of the 560km water pipeline running uphill from Perth to Kalgoorlie. It was completed in 1903 and was shrouded in such malicious politics that it drove the head engineer, CY O’Connor, to suicide.
GoLdEN QUEsT dIsCoVErY TrAIL
Gold fever struck further north as well, and a self-guided drive up to Laverton known as the Golden Quest Discovery Trail (956km in total) commemorates the history of the region, which has seen 50
Clockwise from left: View towards Lake Ballard from snake Hill Lookout; the unsealed road out from Menzies is pretty good, but it’s best to leave your van in Menzies; Lake Ballard sign; “ET phone home”.
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